I make things to confront my spinelessness, my constant need to mutate and transform for survival. Without authority I float with the microbial, the cellular, the wild and untamed. My art explores the relationship between design, the body as a biological system, technology, and emotion. - Sam Talbot-Kelly

I met Sam at SciArt Center's launch party. From our quick yet captivating conversation she was personable, intellectual, and dedicated to her craft. Conceptually driven, her artworks are created by crossing disciplines as she combines illustration, drawing and fashion into hybrid installations. Her artwork is environmental, filled with fascinating materials and textures that juxtapose in new-found ways to expand the possibilities of exhibiting multi-media work. She is an artist, interested in the sciences, and her SciArt is captivating in its colorful complexity.

I live in Montpelier, VT. Besides making art professionally from my studio I teach art history, 2D/3D Design and Drawing at Norwich University, Northfield, VT. I manage my brand of bomber caps/accessories called S’AMUSE which you can visit at www.s-amuse.com as well as my blog www.s-amuse.com/blog/.

What is your medium of choice?

I work in a variety of mediums because my ideas are conceptually driven and contingent upon the medium for delivery of message and execution. My installations are textile/robotic based, I create mixed-media 2D illustrations based on installations, I paint in oils on linen, canvas or panel, I install seminal stages of work in window displays, in fashion shows, and I also choreograph performances with dancers wearing my garments and caps.

I create with discarded materials and other kinds of cloth in figurative ways. Textiles in my work are used as metaphors for the permeable nature of skin, a mediating layer between emotion and perception. Incantations of my heroes such as the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, and Alice in Wonderland along with old century paintings inspire me to flow across installation, painting, performance, window displays and illustration. In various projects I explore clothing as shelter, as site for grieving, as a vehicle to the immaterial, and as a communal vessel for the intimate and the poetic.

What is SciArt mean to you?

I just joined SciArt which is new and exciting to me because I hope to dialogue with other artists and scientists who are curious about bridging both disciplines in provocative and probing ways to every viewer. Even though I am a professional artist and not a scientist by trade I see both professionals similarly in terms of their creative process, their problem solving, their experimentation, their exploration and their pioneering into new dimensions and ways of seeing the world around us. I think SciArt means that science and art can collide and rub up against preconceived notions about human and natural environments so that perhaps a perceptual push can occur to enlarge our perspective on evolutionary matters. The body, the globe and the cosmos are ultimately mysterious entities, structures and systems which will continue to inspire us to move the human species forward in compelling and life giving ways. SciArt means there is a supportive platform that can illuminate these discussions and ideas among many cultural advocates in both the scientific and artistic worlds.